A ghost of a chance

The black and white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata variegata) gracing the cover is a diurnal prosimian endemic to Madagascar. The word “lemur” means “ghost” in Latin, and watching these magnificent animals travel through, and seemingly disappear into, the trees may actually make you believe that you have seen a ghost. Lemurs vault from limb to limb and cling to the spiniest and most peculiar trees with the greatest of ease. Even though they do not have prehensile tails, lemurs can hang upside down from their feet and feed with their forelimbs, and are masters of their arboreal domain. The black and white ruffed lemur spends almost all of its life in trees, even building a nest there. These animals are so intricately woven into the forest tapestry that they have become the sole pollinator of the traveller's palm and appear to have co-evolved with the tree. But, despite the aerial ballet, sharp acuity seemingly has not been necessary, as these lemurs are afoveate, and this is important to our story.

The order Primates is divided into three suborders:Prosimii,Platyrrhina, andCatarrhina. TheProsimii consists of the lemurs, bushbabies, lorises, pottos, and tarsiers. Most of these are nocturnal or cathemeral (active both day and night), although the black and white ruffed lemur is diurnal. The platyrrhines are New World monkeys, and within the catarrhines there are two divisions, consisting of Old World monkeys and the hominoids. The prosimians (“before the monkeys”) are thought to retain more “primitive” characteristics …